In recent years a sizable body of research has highlighted how ethanol is playing an important role in enhancing energy security and the rural economy while contributing to decarbonizing the transportation sector throughout the U.S. This makes a recent pronouncement from a governmental body somewhat surprising. The U.S. EPA Scientific Advisory Board has called into question the benefits of ethanol as a sustainable fuel.
BJ Johnson, CEO of ClearFlame Engine Technologies – a company that retrofits diesel engines to run on biofuels – disagrees with the findings, especially in the context of transportation emissions increasing. Johnson has a PhD in thermodynamics and mechanical engineering (Stanford University), an area where he investigated engines running on cleaner fuel alternatives like ethanol, methanol and other sustainable fuels.
Johnson draws on research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory which finds that ethanol is 44 percent lower in emissions than gasoline. In addition, the California Air Resources Board assigns a 40 percent greenhouse gas benefit to ethanol.
The overwhelming scientific consensus indicates that ethanol is substantially better than petroleum fuels, and comparable in greenhouse gas benefits to that of electric vehicles.
Johnson observes that alternative research does not stand up to scrutiny and cites cases where research that have asserted the dangers of ethanol have had to be retracted due to inaccuracies, in recent years.
However, Johnson fears, as it puts it in a statement sent to Digital Journal: “the public narrative surrounding the report may lead the casual reader to believe a thorough study will dismiss the benefits of ethanol.”
In addition, Johnson states that “we should not be giving equal policy considerations to the occasional, debunked study that ethanol is worse than fossil fuels when there is consensus among the scientific community that ethanol, and other sustainable liquid fuels, are nearly 2x better than their fossil counterparts, gasoline and diesel.”
Johnson has put forwards evidence-backed data that sustainable liquid fuels like ethanol offer a way forward to make a lasting impact on climate change – far beyond what can be done with electric vehicles today in sectors such as long-haul trucking and other industrial use cases.
Policies supporting cleaner fuels include the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which devotes significant resources to the expanded use of biofuels like ethanol. Similarly, the National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization contains projects including Sustainable Liquid Fuels like ethanol, which have a role to play in decarbonizing long-haul trucking.
These approaches are supported by research from the Argonne National Laboratory which indicates that alternative fuels, including ethanol, make a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gases.
